


Graveyard Boy

by SomehowSleepy



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, I'm guessing, No shipping here kiddos just some...., Underage Drug Use, everything else..., i've only tried the devils lettuce twice and i just got hungry and sleepy, probably bad descriptions of being high
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-05
Packaged: 2019-11-12 08:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18007187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomehowSleepy/pseuds/SomehowSleepy
Summary: Klaus's first experience with drugsFrom the point of view of the one who introduced him to them.





	Graveyard Boy

**Author's Note:**

> I sat down for an hour and wrote this at like 2:30 am because I couldn't sleep and saw a post wondering about the other 36 kids that 'ol reggie didn't manage to "adopt" and I figured well if all their powers are different at least ONE other kid used drugs to cope right? Right? Well here's that plus some Klaus angst because I love to suffer I guess. Enjoy?

She was 13 when she found him that night. They were both 13. She knew this because they had the same exact birthday, and she knew _that_ because her mother had told her a story of a man who had tried to buy her just because of the day she was born. The day the six crime fighting children who were often on the news were born. It wasn’t like she recognized him through some sort of strange connection all the kids born on the twelfth hour of the first day of October, 1983 shared. No, the masks they wore while fighting crime were more effective than one would think, the tattoo of the umbrella on their wrists, well that was more telling. She stumbled upon him in the graveyard she frequented when the drugs started wearing off and the noise of the people became too much.  
He seemed petrified, cowering behind a tombstone hands bruised fingertips bloody as if he had to climb or claw his way out of something. Since she was coming down from a high she could focus in on the thoughts screaming from his head, _leave me alone! I can’t help you! Please, **go away!**_ Who he was talking to she had no idea, but she figured it had something to do with his _gift_ as her mother liked to call it. She watched him cry, strained screams slipping out sporadically, eventually deciding it’d be more trouble to just leave him there than it would be to try and help. So she walked over to him, and when he didn’t notice her standing there quietly for a few minutes she nudged his leg with her foot.  
“Hey.” he looked up at her startled, then at his leg, then back at her eyes going wide in abject horror.  
“No!” he screeched before folding his legs up and wrapping his arms around his knees, “No, no, no, no you can’t touch me! Those- that’s never- You can’t!” he put his head between his knees and she watched as he started to hyperventilate. She sat down cross legged on the grass, trying again to get his attention, without touching him this time.  
“Hey. Hey kid!” she knew they were the same age, she knew she was smaller than him, but the way he shrunk against the back of the headstone shaking made him look younger, “What’s your name?” that seemed to get his attention enough for him to stop his shaky breathing all together. “Your name?” His eyes lifted to meet hers, still shining with tears, but not nearly as fearful as when she nudged him.  
“You don’t know my… name?” it sounded painful, as if he hadn’t used his voice all night, or more likely, like he’d been screaming all night. His voice cracked on the last word, it made him seem younger still, yet she was painfully aware of the black umbrella circled on his wrist, of the discarded uniform jacket lying a few feet away, of the fact that if her mother had sold her to The Man she would probably be suffering like he was.  
“I wouldn’t ask if I knew.” She said simply, thankfully still high enough to ignore most of the jumbled mess of thoughts coming from him.  
“Then… You’re alive.” It was less of a statement and more of a question, the tone could even be interpreted as hopeful if he didn’t still look like he was ready to jump out of his own skin at the drop of a hat.  
“Yeah.” they stared at each other silently, well perhaps silently for him, but for her the jumbled mess of thoughts coming from him started becoming cohesive sentences, soon she would be getting his direct stream of consciousness fed directly into her head. So she did what she normally did when her high started wearing off. She pulled out a plastic baggie from an inside pocket of her denim jacket and started rolling a joint. He continued to stare at her, only now his focus was on her hands as she placed a thin square of paper on her thigh, _What is she doing? Is that a gum wrapper or something?_ , and began rolling it around what was left of her weed. She’d have to get in touch with Johnny again soon to replenish her stash. _Oh my god that’s marijuana._ Was the last of his thoughts that she heard before she lit the joint, his thoughts going fuzzy on her first inhale, letting her own thoughts slip into the soft muffled sound that was the noise she’d grown accustomed to on the exhale. “Your name?” She prompted again taking another hit, this seemed to startle him out of staring at the smoke now floating into the night sky.  
“Klaus.” She nodded in acknowledgment, holding her breath and letting herself slip further into hazy peace. Every now and then she’d notice him looking around as if there was someone else around then snapping his eyes back to her like he was trying to ignore them. He flinched away from something a few times before she asked her next question on the exhale.  
“What’re you doing here, Klaus?” She watched his eyes follow the smoke again.  
“My dad left me here.”  
“Some kind of punishment?” She took a hit but instead of breathing deeply and letting it take her farther away she blew out straight into Klaus’s face just as he was answering.  
“He doesn’t think so.” She almost laughed at him scrunching up his nose, but held her tongue when she saw him lift a hand like he was going to fan away the smoke then let it drop to the dirt.  
“You don’t look happy to be here.” His gaze met hers.  
“I’m not” His eyes were filled with anger. She held his stare.  
“Then why?” He flinched away again, gaze focused on something behind her left shoulder. “Klaus.” He snapped back to attention.  
“Why what?”  
“If this isn’t a punishment then why did your dad leave you here.” She was pretty sure she knew the answer. His _gift_ must have something to do with death and The Man must have been forcing him to deal with it the hard way.  
“He thinks it helps.” Judging by the monotone voice and the terrified look he was still giving whatever was behind her shoulder, he didn’t believe it did. She took another hit, inhaling deeply, watching Klaus’s eyes move constantly, never lingering on one spot for too long, then held the joint out to him.  
“This helps.” His gaze landed on the joint, it seemed out of focus, far away even without the drugs. His eyes didn’t leave the joint as he responded.  
“You don’t know what your trying to help.” Even without being able to comprehend his thoughts she knew he wasn’t referring to his _gift_. He thought himself a freak, she had too when she was realized that no one else was constantly getting a stream of unfiltered thoughts fed directly to their brain.  
“It’ll help.” She had no idea if it would numb his gift like it numbed hers, but at the very least it would help him cope. “Trust me.” and maybe there was a special connection that all children who were born on the twelfth hour of the first day of October, 1983 shared, Or maybe somehow, despite everything he had gone through Klaus was still naive enough, or desperate enough to trust strangers in graveyards because without another word he took the joint. She watched as he hesitantly brought it to his lips, and took a shallow breath. Then promptly started coughing and hacking. This time he did start waving his hand in front of his face frantically fanning the smoke away, he tried to hand it back to her but she shook her head.  
“Inhale, and hold your breath.” He looked at her skeptically eyes watering, then his gaze snapped over to something behind her again and he shut his eyes tightly and brought the joint back to his lips. She could hear him inhale deeply, and watched his chest convulse a few times as he held in another coughing fit. When he finally exhaled he kept his eyes closed. “And repeat, it takes practice kid.” He nodded shakily, eyes still closed, but he didn’t need to be prompted again before he was taking his third hit. She sighed quietly, slowly becoming aware of the muffled sound of his thoughts again. So she did what she usually did when her high was wearing off and she ran out of weed, she pulled a tiny plastic baggie out of her back pocket and took out one of the little off white pills she’d bought off of someone with a fake prescription, and popped it in her mouth. She laid back on the floor looking up at the stars as she swallowed the pill dry, stretching out her legs feeling Klaus flinch when she accidentally bumped against him. At least this time he didn’t start screaming, she wasn’t in the mood to deal with loud noises, outloud or otherwise.  
“How old are you anyways?” She registered him asking, but couldn’t quite figure out why he asked or why she should answer. The pill, now completely in her system had her focusing on much more interesting things like the feel of the cool dirt on her lower back where her shirt and jacket had ridden up, and the way she could feel every single ring she had on her fingers. She felt someone nudge her foot, the sensation went all the way up her spine.  
“Hmmm?”  
“You keep calling me ‘kid’. How old are you?”  
“Oh,” she stretched out lazily, wondering if that was how cats felt when they first woke up, “Fifteen.” she lied easily, it was dark and Klaus had been too busy focusing on the invisible things to have really gotten a good look at her so she could’ve gone for an older age, but she figured fifteen was a good an age as any. He only hummed in response, so it was hard to tell if he believed her or not but she didn’t really care either way. She hummed back and they fell into a comfortable silence. Comfortable for her anyway, she watched the stars twinkle in the sky through the wispy grey clouds, as the quiet buzzing that was Klaus’s thoughts became background noise, along with his steady breaths occasionally interrupted by deep inhales and less and less, hoarse coughing. Eventually the stars disappeared, or maybe she closed her eyes because when the sound of a car came from down the road and she was startled into sitting up, she was pretty sure the stars were still there, but she was more interested in what Klaus was doing.  
“Shit, shit.” He was looking around panicked, the joint in his hand significantly smaller than when she first rolled it, somewhere in her fuzzy far away mind she registered that there were headlights approaching and that it would probably be bad to be caught with drugs in a graveyard with one of the Umbrella Academy students, but really it looked like Klaus was about to drop the joint and that was far more pressing.  
“Give it here.” She held out her hand, lazily.  
“My dad’s here.” He was in a semi crouched position, pressing himself as close to the tombstone he was leaning against as he could get. He held out the joint, the movement exposing just a little more of the black umbrella tattoo that had been half exposed the whole night. She stared at it curiously before he thrusted the joint at her and she was forced to take it before he wasted perfectly good weed. She took a hit deciding to stretch out, not at all worried about the situation. Klaus on the other hand looked almost as terrified as he did when she first found him. In the distance there was the sound of a car door opening and closing.  
“Number Four.” Klaus flinched, this time she did too. “Number Four, come out immediately.” The owner of the voice was far enough in the distance that she couldn’t make out any distinguishing features, but she knew that voice. She heard it on tv talking about saving the world and asking any other “Super Powered Children” to step forward and join the ranks of The Umbrella Academy. He was shaking again.  
“Did it help?” she asked, not bothering to lower her voice.  
“What?” He whispered back.  
“Did your trip to the graveyard help?” He froze. Klaus slowly turned to face her then looked around. His eyes moved quickly, flashing with something closer to dread than fear every now and then but it was gone as soon as it came, then he looked back at her. His shoulders started shaking, he put a hand over his mouth, his legs buckled and he went from semi crouching to semi laying against the headstone. His eyes closed and for a moment she feared he was crying, that she made it worse, but then along with the shaking shoulders came a soft sound almost like a wheeze. He was laughing. She smiled. He let his hand drop and head fall forward, shoulders still shaking with quiet laughter.  
“Yeah,” a manic giggle, “Yeah, it helped.” She took a hit of what was left of the joint.  
“Told you.” He just kept nodding, his laughing didn’t stop.  
“Yeah, no yeah you, yeah.” He looked up again and grimaced, “I mean, the ugly bastards are still there but,” he wheezed out another giggle, covering his mouth again when it started getting too loud, “They aren’t talking just… staring. I can deal with staring.” He sighed, “No more of all that screaming and crying and ‘help me Klaus’ ‘oooh, Kalus please’ ‘Klaus why?’ Hahh...” He kept rambling unaware that she hardly understood what he was saying. It didn’t matter though because she had helped.  
“Number Four! I will not ask again.” The laughing stopped immediately, he nodded to her and started getting back up. She took one last hit from the joint before snuffing it out on the ground.  
“Hey.” She held up a hand telling him to wait, she pulled out the little baggie with the pills. “These’ll help too.” She tossed him the bag gently, he still fumbled and dropped it. When he picked it back up he looked at its contents with wide eyes.  
“Number Four!!” He startled fumbling with the bag again before shoving it in the pockets of his shorts.  
“Coming, I’m coming!” He shouted back as he stood up from his hiding spot, looking back at her and nodding once before running towards where the voice was coming from. She watched him go before flopping back down on the ground. Great, now she had to buy more weed and xanax before her high wore off or she was going to be stuck getting bombarded with a million different streams of consciousness at once.   
  
~~~~~   
  
Six years later at a club called The Graveyard Shift she saw another nineteen year old. She knew he was nineteen the same way she knew they were both born on the twelfth hour of the first day of October, 1983. Only this time in addition to the black umbrella completely on display through his mesh sleeved top, he had “Hello” tattooed on his right hand, and “Good Bye” tattooed on his left, and instead of cowering alone, back against a tombstone he was dancing pressed between two men, both taller than him. Instead of eyes filled with terror, gaze never lingering on one spot, his eyes roamed lazily around the club as he laughed and danced. When he noticed her watching him he looked confused for a moment before he grinned. He gave her a small wave with his right hand, digging around in the pocket of one of his dance partners’s pants before his smile grew and he threw something her way. She caught it easily, it was a little plastic baggie filled with pills of various different colors all marked with an “X” on either side. When she looked back up at him he winked garishly and blew her a kiss with his left hand, showing her his palm and wiggling his fingers at her. She could take a hint, so she did what she usually did when her high was wearing off and she was just gifted some free ecstacy. She popped a pill in her mouth and let the swirling ocean of thoughts that didn’t belong to her drift farther away.

**Author's Note:**

> Imma keep it real with y'all. Idk whether or not to apologize about this being out of character or not because technically we didn't get to see much of 13 year old Klaus other than when he was freaking out so.... I tried?? I'll tell ya what though, i'll for sure apologize for my overuse of commas. Again i wrote this in one hour, gave it a quick once over and posted it. Forgive my writing sins, I hope you enjoyed.


End file.
